The Portuguese-born Balelo, 40, fatally suffered carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the website, which says his idle vehicle was parked and running inside the garage of his auction house in Simi Valley, Calif. He was said to have been discovered by one of his employees Monday morning.

According to his A&E bio, Balelo lived with his family in Brazil from the age of 3 to 14, when he went to work on one of his family's tuna boats. He eventually went to San Diego, Calif., then Newport Beach, finally moving up to Los Angeles, where he sold expensive European cars â€“ until the economic crash of 2008.

Then, he said, he started "selling things on eBay from home. It started as a hobby and quickly turned into an empire."

Combing liquidations, customer returns and closeouts for items, "I grew tremendously fast with over $1,000,000 in sales in the first six months of opening the new business," he said, claiming that the Simi Valley-based "Balelo, Inc. now employs over 50 people with several locations."